Paramount Extends Deal With David Ellison’s Skydance

Paramount Pictures has extended its relationship with the studio’s most prolific co-financier/producer Skydance Productions, the film producer-financier run by David Ellison, will extend its relationship with the studio for another four years. That keeps in the fold the company that has become a steady producing and financing partner on the studio’s biggest-budget popcorn films. The extension will also encompass the production of at least two final installments of The Terminator, which Ellison and his sister Megan brought into Paramount just recently.

Skydance will make three to four event movies per year, and brings an annual production financing budget of between $200 million and $250 million per year. Ellison and his team are also involved in many of the projects as creative producers as well. Since the original deal was inked in 2010, Skydance has done what was hoped, which was to deliver commercial films that succeeded globally. Among the movies made by the partnership in that stretch were True Grit, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Jack Reacher, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Star Trek Into Darkness and most recently the Brad Pitt-starrer World War Z. Combined, those films have made more than $2.4 billion at the global box office. “Our partnership with David and Skydance has been tremendously successful,” said Paramount Pictures Chairman and CEO Brad Grey in a statement. “We are very pleased to extend our relationship and look forward to many more successful years ahead.”

As part of the agreement, Skydance will continue to have the option to co-finance and co-produce certain Paramount properties in which the studio is seeking a co-financing and creative partner. Paramount, in turn, will have first rights on all Skydance projects in development with the opportunity to co-finance and distribute movies that the company produces.

Currently, the partnership is working on Jack Ryan, the reboot of the Tom Clancy spy franchise starring Chris Pine, directed by Kenneth Branagh and set for a December 25 bow; and a new Terminator movie in partnership with Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures, set for a June 2015 release. Also in development are new installments of the Mission: Impossible, G.I. Joe and Star Trek franchises as well as a long-in-the-works sequel to Top Gun.